Friday, December 11, 2015

National Cocoa Day

Various sources claim that either December 12 or December 13 is National Cocoa Day. Here in Texas it's warm again (near 80 degrees!), so it's not exactly ideal cocoa drinking weather, but I am going for it anyway. I love hot cocoa, so I was happy to see this "holiday" exists and we thought it would be a fun one to include in our anthology, The Poetry Friday Anthology for Celebrations. Read it now or save it for a chilly day!

And if you want to use the "Take 5" activities that accompany this poem in the book, here you go:

As your poetry
prop, hold a mug as if it were full of hot cocoa and read this National Cocoa
Day poem aloud with enthusiasm.

Share the poem
again and invite children to chime in on the repeated phrase It’s cocoa,
it’s cocoawhile you read the rest of the poem aloud. Hold up your mug to
cue them.

Use details from
the poem to work together and make a list of things that contain cocoa. Another
resource is TheStoryofChocolate.com.

Pair this poem
with the picture book No Monkeys, No Chocolate by Melissa Stewart
(Charlesbridge, 2013). Talk about where cocoa comes from and how the
interdependence of rain forest plants and animals is essential to its growth.

Connect with “On the Day of the Dead” by René
Saldaña, Jr. (November, pages 292-293) and with selections from ¡Yum! ¡MmMm! ¡Qué Rico!: America's Sproutings
by Pat Mora (Lee & Low, 2007) and The Popcorn Astronauts and Other
Biteable Rhymes by Deborah Ruddell (McElderry,
2015).

Now check out the Poetry Friday fun over at A Teaching Life where Tara is hosting the party!

About Me

Sylvia Vardell is a professor and author of the ALA bestseller POETRY ALOUD HERE, also POETRY PEOPLE, CHILDREN'S LITERATURE IN ACTION, and the co-editor of THE POETRY FRIDAY ANTHOLOGY series (for K-5 and for 6-8), as well as the first digital anthologies of poetry for young people, the POETRY TAG TIME series-- all in collaboration with poet Janet Wong. Vardell is also the poetry columnist for ALA’s BOOK LINKS magazine. A frequent speaker at conferences, Vardell chaired the NCTE Poetry Award committee and has served as a consultant to the Poetry Foundation.